What group was this Canadian shooter a part of?
You say the internet can qualify as organization, and certainly ideas / planning / inspiration can be derived... but how material is that for lone wolves? It would help if we had evidence of such support, instead of mere imagination, guessing, and conjecture. If this is terrorism, then surely he was not alone? Who else do we hold responsible and thus target for retribution for this massacre? If it is a terrorist organization then surely law enforcement has more action to take against those involved. But at this point there aren't any. He is a lone wolf.
That's still true at this point, right, that he stands alone?
As I consider this topic, and the stakes involved, I fear we are making mistakes by elevating lone wolves and giving them undeserved attribution to a greater cause. If an American thinks ISIS sounds cool and commits such a crime, does it make him ISIS? Do we lay such an incident at their feet, add to their "tally" to further their "glory" in the minds of the vulnerable? If Mateen in Orlando is not discussed as a representative of others, but merely his own hated, I feel that diminishes him. And such status might both rob him of his "glory" and prevent the greater threat from also rising in people's minds.
And that perception might be half the battle against terrorism.
I think back to September 11th and how Americans have felt about Islam and Muslims ever since. On the news are stories of terrorism, of violence, of hatred. Night after night, year after year. These things are reported and those reports inform us... they define Muslims to the public. People want to literally preemptively attack Iran because of that perception driving fear. That fear also drives attacks against Muslims. Because every individual act of hatred and violence is given attribution to a greater group, whether there's a real organization / connection or not.
We do not spend the time to diminish these acts, and people pay a very real price. The world goes to war over it. Iraq falls into chaos and terror and ISIS forms to commit genocide in the wake of our stupidity. If we did not let fear drive the narrative, if we did not rush to attribute hatred and crimes to a greater cause... perhaps as many as a million people would be alive today. I look at these failures and I see the root of our mistakes. We are driven by a perception.
And so to "win" the War on Terror I truly believe we must diminish terrorists. For our sake, and theirs.